Cambridge!

Watch out Cambridge, here I come! I can't believe how behind I've got with this blog... I got my results the Thursday before last. 3 A*s (History, Maths, English Lit), A in General Studies and AS Ancient History. I got 118/120 in my final exam for History! I never imagined I'd do that well, I figured I'd be able to get the A* I needed for Cambridge in Maths, but never seriously thought I'd be able to get A* in all three of my main subjects. So chuffed :). And got home from getting my results and found two letters, one from Christ's College, one from UCAS. Naturally I opened the one from Christ's College first, they told me they were giving me a place, said congratulations, then there was an epic reading list (two and a half pages, although it did say I'm not expected to read them all) and a thing to say I need to pick what modules I want to do. Well, the modules I've chosen are: British Political and Constitutional History 1450-1750, British Social and Economic History 1500-1750, Utopian Writing 1516-1789, European History since 1890, Expansion of Europe from the Fifteenth Century to the First World War, and The West and the 'Third World' from the First World War to the present day. Can't wait!

Results!

I got my AS results yesterday. Went into college again for the first time since the holidays, and got to see everyone. Well, almost everyone at any rate. I got 6 A's (English Language, English Lit, History, Maths, Sociology and Critical Thinking)... So I was pretty chuffed, as you can imagine :D.

We went out in the evening to celebrate. All the way up to Dave's Chippy, cos I love fish and chips. And we went via Blackburn Library, cos, well, you know what I'm like about libraries. Blackburn library's pretty good to be honest, I recokon it's better than the Harris (which isn't exactly difficult, but y' know). Just a shame it's in Blackburn... :( . Anyway, had yummy fish and chips and onion rings for tea, and am still somewhat full up on them now.

Last Exam!!!!

So, I had my last exam yesterday. Maths decision. Yay! There was a monster of a last question though, involving a simplex algorithm where you had to repeat the same row twice. (For those of you who don't have a clue what a simplex algorithm is, you basically use it to work out how to maximise profit from a given set of variables. This question involved a badge factory; one of the other really nasty bits was that it asked you to work out what the question was...). I was a little annoyed to get to maths today and discover we were starting a whole new topic. Simpson's Rule. Thankfully we had a nice, rather amusing powerpoint to explain it, which involved multiple pictures of various Simpsons, and some music from the shows.

Form is so annoying though. Argh! Turned up today, to try and discover exactly what we have to do for this stupid cope thing, only to find out that not only is that due in in less than two weeks, we also have to write our personal statement for UCAS by next week! Why they couldn't have given us a little more warning, I don't know. Still, I suppose it could be worse. I could be doing general studies.

Sociology and Critical Thinking

I had two more exams yesterday. Sociology in the morning--two hour exam. Slightly dodgy 12-mark question, but I think I've blagged it okay. It was asking about why there are different pupil subcultures, which we've not really looked at at all, especially not in that sort of context. Anyway, I rabbitted a bit for that. Finished it forty minutes early, so I was sat there being bored for ages. Critical thinking wasn't so bad. Again though, I finished forty minutes early. I've now come to the unfortunate conclusion that examiners work out how much time you need and then add forty minutes. They could at least give us sudoku puzzles to do once we're finished.

English Language exam

Yeh. I had my first exam today. And hey, look, I'm still alive! Despite the fact I finished the darn thing forty minutes early. Yes. Forty. It was a two and a half hour exam that took me less than two. Although one of my friends said she was really rushed and writing all the way up to the end... I got plenty of points down though, and apparantly if you write rubbish it knocks your mark down, even if the rest of it's okay. So I figured that since I couldn't actually spot any more good points, I'd be better off leaving what I'd done. So I sat there. And sat there. And composed a little poem in my head (which I didn't dare write down, for fear of examinery reprisals--apparantly someone once doodled on their paper and they sent it back with a mega complaint).

Exam Room

Crocodile skin floor, tattooed with slashes of colour
Who knows what sports to represent?
The tense rustle of pens
As you sit in boredom
Thinking, when will this torture end?
The unquiet silence that bars all thoughts from coming,
The disturbing rustle as all others work on
Oh look!
The clock just changed its number
Only twenty-seven minutes to go...

(or something roughly along those lines. It's kinda difficult to remember poetry you don't write down). I also figured out another couple of scenes for my story. And watched the clock. One of my friends, who was also bored, worked out what 2 to the power of 27 was... In her head.

Exam Results!

Got the exam results from my January modules today. Three A's and a B. 100% in history and maths!!! Really chuffed about that.

Got the B in sociology, which I'm going to retake. I did pretty badly in it to be honest, only just scraped the B. But I did do it straight after my maths exam, so my brain was kinda dead by the time I got to it. Anyway, I'm dead chuffed about getting hundred percent in maths, and especially especially in history!

Stupid maths exam

Meh. The stupid maths exam was supposed to take an hour and a half. I finisished it in the half an hour. Could've done my sociology exam as well in that time, and actually done something other than sitting in silence for ages and ages and ages. It's like they punish you for doing well and finishing early. Meh. I think that maths papers should include sudoku puzzles at the back for people who finish early. That's my theory. The sociology one wasn't so bad. One of the questions was a bit 'huh', but I got an answer down and I think it was about right. You get some marks for common sense answers at any rate, so it shouldn't be too bad. The e question was much better for me. I guess it was something I feel fairly strongly about.

Whoo!! I finished school!!

I'm done with school. No more must I enter that accursed exam hall and sit in silence. Sure, there're more exams to come next year, but let's not think of that for now. All that really matters is that I'm done, on holiday for the summer, and amazingly it isn't raining, although it is rather cold and cloudy. Going away tomorrow for the weekend. Not going to choir. I probably should, but I've just finished, I think I deserve a lie in tomorrow. I'll be back for choir after tomorrow though. After all, I am the narrator in The Reluctant Dragon.

English and Chemistry

Well, chemistry yesterday was pretty hard. I just could not do the empirical formula question. It was impossible. Don't think anyone else could either. Still. Only exam so far that's taken me the full time. English could've been worse, but the article just completely slagged off teenagers and the first two questions were virtually identical. The writing part was ok though. About how to survive teenagers and the smoking ban. Pretended I was an old lady for the letter about the smoking ban since it gave me an excuse to use loads of nice long words.

I'm Alive!

Eight exams in a week, and I'm here to tell the tale. RE today wasn't too bad. Two of the three eight mark questions we'd gone over in class because they were on last years paper. The first one I wasn't too sure on, but I just made it up and hoped for the best. You can do that with RE though.

Over half way through!

Well, I got to come home early today, despite having two afternoon exams. Got home about an hour earlier than usual and so played scrabble.

Officially, I should go in next Tuesday afternoon, for my history lesson. Unofficially, nobody particularly minds, provided I'm sensible. Unofficially, I can also leave early after my last exam. So, I'm thinking that's what I'm doing. Seven exams left to go.

French wasn't too hard, apart from the answer in English bit, which was about smoking and stuff, which was a little tricky, so I just wrote randomness. Bear in mind though, everyone will have found it hard, not just me and my set. Mrs Wilkinson's back. Having a party on Friday, a large portion of which I will miss thanks to RE exam, but I should get the last part. I'll miss most of the next lesson on Wednesday though, so I guess she only really came back for part lessons as far as I'm concerned.

IT was pretty straight forward. Any idea what the layout of a formal letter has to do with IT? There was a question which asked what standard thing was missing from a letter. It was the date, if you were interested. Seemed a little odd though.

Nightmare...

Well, I was going to write all my dreams in here, so I figure I'd best put this one in too. It completely freaked me out, and thankfully it didn't come true--my phone went safely away into my locker...

I was in my English lit exam, and about five or ten minutes in, I realised I still had my phone. I put my hand up and said, and was told that it was too late, and made to stand in a corner for ages. Then they decided it was ok, and I could do the exam, but I had to rush like mad to get it done, and then they gave me more time so it was ok, but it wasn't, it was a really freaky dream, and I'm very, very glad it didn't come true.

English lit...

I think it went pretty well. The big question on Paddy Clarke was virtually identical to one I did as a practice, which Mrs Farrell gave me full marks for, so that was good because I just rewrote the gist of that essay. Not exactly--my memory isn't that good--but I was a bit annoyed that I forgot one of the characters names (Charles Leavy). The poem was a really nice one though, about London at two in the morning. The Blood Brothers question wasn't too hard either, so hopefully I've done fairly well. I finished a bit early, but it wasn't too bad, because I just read all the other extracts. The one from Stone Cold was really interesting. Apparently it's quite a good book, so it can go on my list of things to read over the summer.

Maths...

Well. I said this morning maths'd be ok provided I didn't finish in half an hour. I did. It was an hour and a quarter exam.

Gotta go. Come back later assuming I'm not reading paddy clarke ha ha ha.

RE Exam

It went pretty well. There was one question 'what importance does St Paul's thing on love in 1 Corinthians 13 to Christians' that I wasn't so sure about, but I figured it was the 'love is patient, love is kind' one and it turned out to be, so that's ok.

Maths tomorrow, English lit on Tuesday and Biology on Wednesday.

First Exam

Think it went pretty well. My teacher said I was very relaxed and some of my answers made her laugh. Presumably that was a good thing. I think she was amused by the 'if the world was perfect, we wouldn't go to school', and the fact that I said I was energetic after eating chocolate...

I also managed to persuade my RE teacher to let me miss tomorrow's lesson for the newspaper meeting...

Marks

Well. I got my mock results back for most of it. Chemistry was my best out of all the sciences, and Mr Benett read the marks from worst to best, and I was best in the class! Have to admit, it was a little embarrassing. Not quite as bad as English though. Apparently, my essay on the unseen poem which was exam practice, was faultless, so Mrs Farrell decided to read it out to the class. It wouldn't have been so bad if it'd been anonymous. Still, I am quite happy about that, because I didn't think I'd done amazingly in it. Just goes to show it's more technique and confidence than anything else. And I hate waffling. Although Mrs Farrell said mine was longer than Illyas' (sorry, no idea how to spell his name), she said it doesn't matter if I have the time to write that. Plus my writing is a fair bit bigger than his. Other marks, Physics I was one mark off an A*, but the grade boundaries are sooooo low, and Biology I was into an A*. Maths I did pretty well in, 64 out of 70 on the non-calculator.
Mrs Farrell's marked my story now, the one I had to do for B2 on Paper 1, and she said it was really, really good, which I'm happy about because I wasn't sure she'd like it, and she said that if I cut anything out it'd spoil it, which I was also surprised about, because there was a lot in that story. I wrote it as a blog, and it was about this girl who'd been raped on her first night out since being caught in the bomb blast during a terrorist attack in which her brother was killed. Anyway, she wasn't sure I could write it in the time, but I just have done today, I managed to write out a version of it that follows roughly the same lines as the original, in exactly half an hour, which is the amount of time we have. I quite liked that story. Maybe I'll continue it into a novel, like I kind of planned on doing, but kind of am now not sure about. I don't know. Maybe I'll ask Mrs Farrell about it on Monday. Have to see.

Exams approaching

First exam on Monday. Not looking forward to it. Just wanted time to freeze while I was at the Delirious concert last night. Still, I have two weeks, with two exams this week coming and three the following week, then a week break, and then nine exams the next week, and then the weekend to collapse and then just another four the next week. Then it's all done. And I will never have to do French again. Or physics. Even though some bits of physics are interesting. Why can't I study microbiology at A-level? Or just have a new science which deals with atoms and molecules and DNA and all the really interesting stuff that science is advancing in? I'd love to do that if it existed. Unfortunately, it doesn't. I'd have to do all three sciences to find out the really interesting stuff. Humph.

More Mocks... :(

Well, I had my Chemistry mock first thing this morning. Really hard, though I think I've done okish. I don't know really. Some of it was really confusing. And then Maths. Also very hard, and I know I've lost at least one mark, because I really didn't have a clue, but I think I managed to get most of it sorted in the end. Hope I did. Although it is only a mock. As long as Mr Bennett doesn't make fun of me in front of the whole class, because that's just nasty. I hate it when he does that, to anyone really, because it's not fair and it's really disheartening. Everyone gets stuff wrong sometimes, that doesn't give him a right to make your life a misery if you do get something wrong. And he wonders why people don't answer.

Exams...

Honestly, mock exams today, and they were so boring. I finished the maths one about twenty minutes early, and the physics one about fifteen minutes early. Plus I had a go at doing an IT paper, and it's just a joke. It took me ten minutes, including the time I took out to stop and do some work on my folder, so more like six or seven, and I got thirty-seven out of forty, and the exam is supposed to take an hour. An hour! I'm going to be bored out of my mind. Argh! Why can't they give people a more realistic time scale to complete things. Or better yet, let you leave the exam once you're done. Humph say I.